Back in the Pool

 WAC practice started back up for Nolan so now most of his evenings are spent back in the pool.

State Bound (Again!!)

 Marissa is state bound for swimming once again.  This time it is for club state.

Because she is in high school, she would compete in the Senior State meet which took place last week (Thursday through Sunday) and the rest of the state qualifiers will compete in the age group state that takes place this coming weekend.  

Years ago, she set a goal to qualify for a state meet and this year she finally met that goal in the 50 freestyle.  That race was set to take place on Saturday morning so we would head down together on Friday night after she got home from practice.

We were able to cash in some reward points for a free hotel at a Candlewood Suites located about a mile from Pike High School where the meet was set to take place.  The hotel was really nice, but because is a suite style, they didn't offer breakfast so once we checked in and realized that, we had to run to an area Walmart so we could pick up some waffles and milk for breakfast the next morning.  Then we came back so Marissa could get to bed and I stayed up for a while longer until I knew that Morgan had arrived at the airport and was with Nate and Dawn.  Then I was finally able to sleep.

I accidentally booked a "single" suite instead of a "double" so we got to share a bed.  Thankfully Marissa is pretty laid back and didn't really care.

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After a night's sleep, we got up in the morning and headed off.  Marissa was met by one of the coaches from her former swim club (thank you to Scott and Jessica for letting her hang with you for the day) and I headed up to the spectator area for warm-ups.

It was a nice large facility with plenty of sitting room for the fans, but the deck and pools were really crowded with all of the swimmers participating.  

Warm-ups went from 7:30-8:45 and then the meet was set to begin at 9:00.

After her initial warm-up, she went back to the locker area to put on her tech suit and then she came back to warm-up again.

About 30 minutes after the meet started, she was up to swim her 50 freestyle.  She would enter the race seeded 55 out of 77 swimmers and would swim in the third heat.  I was able to catch a quick smile from her before the 50's were to begin, but then it was time to get serious.

Marissa is in lane three at the bottom of the screen wearing the grey striped suit and the black and orange swim cap.  She had a great start but unfortunately, she said something happened on her flip turn and she never fully recovered from that.  She still swam a 25.30 which moved her up to a 45th placing, which she was mostly happy about.  It wasn't a bad time, it just wasn't quite the time that she was hoping for as it wasn't enough to bring her back for the finals and it wasn't quite fast enough to qualify her for the Speedo sectionals.  Overall, it was a positive experience however and one we are both glad that she was able to take part in.

With the swim complete, we were both able to pack up and leave right after.  Since her season is now officially over, she didn't even cool down.  She just changed into her clothes and then we headed out. Since it was still pretty early, we made sure to stop by the Keystone Crossing mall and walk around for a bit before grabbing lunch and then heading home.

Last WAC practice for Divisional Championship Swimmers

 We may have just experienced one of our "most adventurous" weekends as a family this past weekend.  

In fact, I don't even really know how to write this next post.  I mean, we knew that the weekend would be an adventure in and of itself simply because we had so much going on in different places but we certainly didn't have any idea of how the weather would change everything and make it even more adventurous. 

So, should I write about how the weekend was suppose to go and make it a long post?   Or should I just talk about how it all turned out and make it one of my longest posts ever?   Maybe I'll just turn this into a series and simply start with our Thursday because that was the calm before the storm.  (Quite literally). 

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Noel had a men's meeting at the church so he dropped Laynie off at the house after track practice and then turned around and headed back out.  Morgan was already at home finishing up some homework and packing for her trip.  Nolan and Marissa were headed over to the pool with me because the board members had asked me to take the Divisional team picture before practice started.  Then a potluck style carry-in dinner would take place after the team practice to make sure that everyone ate well heading into the 2023 divisional championship meet, which would begin on Friday evening.  

Here are our Warsaw Aquatic Divisional Championship Swimmers.  

(I love to see Marissa and Nolan in the same picture this year!)

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Since I had my big girl camera already with me, I decided to take a few pictures of Nolan and Marissa as they practiced a little.  (It's not like I don't already have tons of pictures of them swimming, but here's a few more to add to my collection.)

Here is Marissa in the black suit as she's getting ready to start off practice.  Because she's currently the oldest  and fastest girl, she often jumps in first and leads most of the practice.

And then I took pictures of Nolan as he was swimming a couple of lanes over.

He loves swimming but I think he loves being with his friends even more!

Despite the fact that we all knew that bad weather was coming (but not what the effects would be), everyone seemed to be in good spirits and looking forward to a long weekend of good swimming.  

Good luck at Divisionals!

A Couple Races For My Guys.

Nolan has been swimming club swim all winter season, but unfortunately, some of his meet options have been limited due to the girls' swimming schedule or other things that have been on the calendar.  We've tried to split ways and let him go to a few smaller meets but he has also had to miss a few, especially as several of the meets have only met on Sunday and we try to avoid missing church for swim meets.  As he is coming down to the last couple of meets however, he was really wanting to hit some goals, one of which was making a divisional cut in his backstroke and so that meant that we chose to allow him to swim on a rare Sunday meet this past weekend.  

The two older girls asked if they could come with me so we all got up early on Sunday morning.  As soon as we backed out of the driveway, I realized that there was an icy glaze on all of the roads and in some places, it was nothing but a sheet of ice.  Our normal  50 minute drive would now become much longer.  We slipped around in a couple of places, but thankfully we made it safely there (even if my knuckles were pretty white from gripping the steering wheel) and he was only a few minutes late for warm-ups.

He went to check in and the girls and I went up to find a seat in the gallery.  The girls were anxiously watching for him to come back out and jump into the pool because it was freezing the week before at their conference meet and they wanted to see how he felt about it.  LOL  He did later say that it was one of the coldest pools that he has ever been in.

An hour or so after the meet started, he would swim the 50 freestyle.  He didn't quite get the time that he wanted for a divisional cut but he did better his previous time by over 2 seconds.

He is diving in from lane 4 and he's wearing the black shorts with the green on the sides.

He got out front right at the beginning and held his own for the first 25 but then he lost intensity on the back stretch and lost time as he came in under the flags.  The coach told him that if he could swim fast the entire race, he would easily make divisional cuts because he always starts off really quickly.

He was still leading after his turn, but then the rest of the field began to catch up.

He would finish in 2nd place in his heat with a time of 42.14.

Now we would just wait another hour until he swam again.  (We have been spoiled with not going to too many long club meets as high school meets are much quicker).  He would spend that time eating snacks, playing games, and talking to his friends.

Pretty soon it was time for his to swim the 50 backstroke.  He is without a swim cap in lane 4.

He actually got out to a pretty good lead again in this one but had a pretty shaky flip turn (where we anxiously held our breath because it looked like he should be DQ'd but thankfully he wasn't).

He would easily win his heat and finished with a new PR of 47.49 -- and he would get a divisional cut by only a tenth of a second!!  The girls and I were so excited for him and started yelling and clapping as soon as we saw his time but when we looked at him,  he didn't look very excited as he got out of the pool and walked over to his coaches.  (He later would admit that he thought the divisional time cut was actually two seconds faster and that he thought he had missed it).

As he was walking over to the coaches, they were grinning and clapping for him too but he still didn't realize that he had swam a cut, so it was fun to watch them tell him and then see him go from a serious look to covering his mouth in disbelief to jumping up and down in excitement.

'Such a blurry picture, but you get the idea!

His excitement continued on through the week as he got recognized at practice for a divisional cut and he was able to try on and order his divisional jacket!

Good job buddy!  I am so proud of you for your hard work this swim season.  You have stuck with it and it is paying off for you.

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My other guy also had a race on Sunday.  He would meet up with three other biking friends and they would head up to Michigan where they took place in a 25 mile dirt "fat bike" relay race.  I don't know a lot of details except that it was a cold and muddy mess and Noel had a lot of fun.  

He went up there without a lot of details except that he would be riding with three other teammates and they would have to finish 50 miles going around a half mile dirt track.  Apparently your teammate was required to ride a lap around (or as many as they wanted) and then as they came to the line, you would have to fist bump as an exchange before the next person would head off on the next lap.

Here is Noel waiting for his teammate to come down for the tag.

 Now that he knows what it is like, he knows that it's something he definitely wants to try again!  (This team gave him a bike to borrow so hopefully he won't feel the need to go buy one of his own for future races.  LOL)

I think they finished 7th overall.